roommate on lease and wont pay rent

[usncahill]

the story:
my girlfriend(S) and her roommate(L) are on a year lease for an apartment. both have signed the lease. the initial verbal agreement between S and L had L bringing their checks to the LL for each month.

about three months into their stay they started receiving letters stating that they owed back rent. S started to get suspicious amd when her checks were not being cashed she talked to L. when confronted about this problem, L stated 'she would take care of it.' the letters continued to arrive and S decided to talk to the LL. she found out L had not payed rent (and was holding her checks) for 3 months but finally had just recently payed all of the lawyers fees, late fees and rent, stated as late on the letters, in one lump sum.

we thought this might be the end of it. S still confronted L and said that if she had issues paying she needed to tell S so they wouldnt keep getting late fees. (S got smart and started bringing her check to the LL herself).

that was about 4 months ago.

this week S received another (expected) letter stating that they owed 2 months rent again plus late fees. (mind you S has been paying her half but they use it for the previous month when L hasnt payed.)

all of the owed money can be proven to be owed by L since S has check receipts showing that she has payed the LL.
just to make sure though: are S's receipts good enough to stand up in small claims?


now the questions:
what action can S take to:
a: ensure L pays this amount?

b: force L to agree to terminate the lease, get S out of the lease or get L off the lease? (which has a 60 day clause)(doubtful L would agree to terminate cooperatively)

c: can S sue L to get L out of lease or for damages to her credit due to negligence? does a lease protect leasee's from each other by forcing them to pay their share?

are we not thinking of something?


thanks so much for listening and for any help you can give.

[cardinalfang]

Each cotenant is responsible for paying the landlord ALL of the rent, regardless of whether the other cotenant pays anything or nothing. That is what the lease is for -- to define the tenants' joint and several obligations to the landlord, not to define the cotenants' rights and obligations with respect to each other. Any such arrangement between the cotenants has to be defined by a separate agreement, unless it's a very unusual lease that incorporates some sort of cotenancy agreement.

The landlord can't be forced to terminate the lease because the cotenants failed to abide by the lease due to their own inability to cooperate with each other. If the rent never gets paid, then the landlord may win a nonpayment proceeding and evict all of the occupants, terminating the tenancy.

If there was an agreement of any sort between the cotenants, that may give one of them some remedies against the other. For instance, the cotenant who has been forced to pay all of the rent instead of an agreed share might be able to sue the other cotenant for her agreed share of the rent. But one cotenant's breach of the oral cotenancy agreement would probably not provide a basis for rescinding the entire agreement and making the cotenant liable for all of the rent for the remainder of the lease.

The lesson here is that there is no substitute for a written cotenancy agreement.